Connection Capital
A private-client investment house lending £3m to £10m of senior, unitranche or mezzanine debt to profitable owner-managed companies, funded by high-net-worth individuals rather than a fund.
What they do
Connection Capital negotiates each transaction itself and then syndicates it to private clients who commit in £25,000 multiples, an unusual funding model that gives it a different constituency to an institutional fund. It has deployed more than £580m since 2010 and has been the lead investor in twenty-five UK companies. Debt is written as senior, unitranche or mezzanine according to the situation, and target returns to its investors run from roughly four to seven per cent on senior paper up to fifteen to twenty on mezzanine. A small equity stake or warrant usually sits alongside the loan.
Where they fit in a lower-mid-market raise
This is a genuine sponsorless lender: a profitable owner-managed business with no private-equity backer can raise £3m to £10m here for an acquisition, a buyout or a shareholder reorganisation and deal with the same people from first meeting to completion. Where management want capital without ceding control to a fund, the structure is deliberately built to allow it.
Where they are not the fit
An equity stake or warrant is almost always part of the deal, so a borrower who wants purely non-dilutive debt is in the wrong place. Because each deal is syndicated to private clients after it is agreed, the funding timetable depends on that raise completing, which makes it a poorer fit where a completion date is fixed and immovable.
Published terms
- Pricing
- Target gross annual returns to investors: ~4-7% senior, 8-14% unitranche, 15-20% mezzanine (return targets indicative of risk-priced cost of capital, not stated borrower margin)
- Speed to terms
- Not published
- Sponsored or sponsorless
- Sponsorless or owner-managed - Connection Capital is itself the lead investor (lead private equity investor in 25 UK SMEs; £580m+ since 2010); no external private equity sponsor required
- How they decide
- Connection Capital's SME Investment Team originates, negotiates and DDs; opportunities then offered to private clients who self-select in £25k multiples; Investment Committee governs. Every facility goes to credit committee
- Covenants
- A loose covenant package
- Search funds and ETA
- Lends to search-fund and entrepreneurship-through-acquisition buyers on the published evidence
As published by the lender and last reviewed June 2026. Terms quoted on a deal are set by the credit, not by a published band.
What rules a deal out
Stated limits, taken from Connection Capital’s own published criteria. A limit is where a lender starts from, not where it always ends: several of these move on a strong enough credit.
- Almost always seeks an equity stake or warrant - quasi-equity, not a pure lender
- Deals are syndicated to private clients so funding timeline depends on the raise
- No appetite in adult, crypto, gambling or weapons
How they sit against the category
- Its published ceiling is £10m; 31 of the 46 private-credit funds here go at least as high.
- 15 of the 46 publish an indicative price at all; it is one of them.
Counted across the 46 private-credit & direct-lending funds in this directory, on what each one publishes. What a lender discloses and what it will do are different things.
Questions this page answers
How large a facility does Connection Capital write?
Published facilities run £3m to £10m. A band is what a lender states it will do, not what it will do on a given credit.
Does Connection Capital lend to search funds or ETA buyers?
Yes, on the published evidence. Connection Capital lends to search-fund and entrepreneurship-through-acquisition buyers. A searcher's route to a lender usually runs through the quality of the target and the equity behind it.
Does Connection Capital lend to companies without a private-equity sponsor?
Yes. Connection Capital lends to owner-managed and corporate borrowers, and publishes no private-equity sponsor proposition.
What covenants does Connection Capital set?
A loose covenant package. A covenant package is negotiated on the facility; the published style is where the negotiation starts.
What does Connection Capital lend?
The published product set is direct private debt.
On the record
2025: ongoing thought-leadership from Claire Madden on HNW access to private markets (Citywire / Investment Week.
Sources: connectioncapital.co.uk
This profile is a curated reference note drawn from public sources, not financial advice or a recommendation. Appetite and terms change; a lender's fit for a given credit is established by approaching it, not inferred from a page.